Support for real-time “push” notification is becoming an important feature on mobile device platforms. Consumers are using more and more communications-oriented services (such as email, Instant Messaging (IM), Short Messaging Service (SMS), Social Networking Service (SNS)) and are increasingly expecting real-time updates from these services. New platforms, such as the iPhone®, Android®, and HP Palm WebOS®, offer extensive support for real-time notifications.
There are two main approaches adopted by common platforms to support such notifications: 1) applications or widgets on the device directly poll services for notifications (e.g., new updates); and 2) remote servers, usually hosted by the platform or service provider, provide a notification “detection and forwarding” service (e.g., Apple's Push Notification Service (APNS)).
Typically, the platform or service providers decide the type and format of notifications that are made available for the mobile users to subscribe to. As a result, mobile users do not have fine grained control over the type of notifications they can receive. For example, the user is unable to specify that he is interested only in notifications from a particular friend, or about a particular post, unless this is directly supported by the service provider.